[meeotch]

wrxtasy & ned - thanks for the replies. It sounds, at least, that I'm correctly understanding the various issues as I laid them out in my original post - which is some small consolation. (Though I'd rather have been wrong about there being no "perfect answer".)

It feels like the conflict isn't so much wanting hi-10P on it's own, but the combination of hi-10P and 10-bit HEVC in a single box. From the threads I've scanned, it seems like any i3/i5 NUC can do hi-10P in software - it's the 10-bit HEVC hybrid decoding that's the question mark. (There are plenty of posts saying 4k 10-bit HEVC is a no-go, but info on 1080p is thin.)

As for buying an android box, then tossing it and upgrading to a Kaby Lake NUC once the dust settles - it just seems like a waste to throw a third of my budget at something I don't plan to keep. (The Odroid is an exception, at $40). But I guess if the Cubi 2 is likely to have several months of growing pains (libreelec is apparently on kernel v4.8, which supports Kaby Lake - but who knows?), and I can't be confident in a Skylake NUC handling 10-bit HEVC, then that's the remaining option.

Maybe if I stick it out until the end of the year, there will be some reports on the Cubi 2 from Kodi users running linux.